Fred Wilson embedded this slide deck on his blog. Usually I’d just tweet it out, but it’s so good I wanted to embed it on my blog, just so I’d always know where to find it. 2013 05 BEA – ’Mobile is eating the World’ from Benedict Evans It’s by research analyst named Benedict...

IDC is showing some interesting stats on the number of tablets shipped in Q1 – in particular, for every 3 PCs shipped there were 2 tablets shipped. Since PCs seem to be on a downward trajectory, and the tablet market grew 142% y/o/y, it won’t be long until tablets are just bigger than PCs. Probably this year. Reminds me of my “tablet time” post from last...

IDC is showing some interesting stats on the number of tablets shipped in Q1 – in particular, for every 3 PCs shipped there were 2 tablets shipped.

Since PCs seem to be on a downward trajectory, and the tablet market grew 142% y/o/y, it won’t be long until tablets are just bigger than PCs. Probably this year. Reminds me of my “tablet time” post from last year…

Microsoft seems to be failing in their attempt to get into the tablet market. As this article on extremetech points out, ”Just so you have some idea of how poorly Microsoft’s combination of big-and-expensive tablets are doing, get this: After shipping some 900,000 Surface RT units in Q4 2012, IDC estimates that just 200,000 Windows RT tablets in total — including OEMs! — were sold in Q1 2013. Despite a huge amount of publicity, IDC estimates that the Surface Pro sold around 700,000 units in its first quarter. For comparison, the first iPad sold more than three million units in its first quarter — and the tablet market was a lot smaller back then.”

If I was MSFT, I’d buy share at this point. The whole HP webOS exit from last year, when HP sold tablets for super cheap, clearly showed that the market wants cheap tablets. If Microsoft wants share they should drop the price, lose money and get share. I don’t see any other way.

Wow, shoppers now prefer tablet browsing for product research and search OVER the PC, according to a press release by OpinionLab. “Tablets are great for browsing but not buying: Consumers embrace the tablet as hands-down the best platform to research, browse and price hunt. However, satisfaction plummets when making a purchase, indicating profound frustration with the actual buying experience available on the tablet today. Tablets topped all platforms in terms of Site Opinion rating (3.61) – and consumers were particularly happy when using the tablet to research, browse and price hunt (3.64 vs. 3.47 for mobile and 2.94 for desktop). Ratings plummet 40% to 2.39 for consumers who were using tablets to purchase a product.”

I would not have guessed that tablets would over take the PC just yet for browsing for purchases, but then I started to think about how I search for products… and I seem to do a lot of research on the iPad. I guess this is because I prefer the form factor and fast boot up. Searching for a product on the couch is so much easier with a tablet.

Average tablet pricing is coming down, as tablet’s share of “connected stuff” is rising, according to IDC. “Looking forward, IDC expects the worldwide smart connected device space will continue to surge well past the strong holiday quarter and predicts shipments to surpass 2.1 billion units in 2016 with a market value of $796.7 billion worldwide. IDC’s research clearly shows this to be a multi-device era, although market dynamics are shifting in terms of product category. In 2011, PC’s – a combination of desktop and portable PCs – accounted for 39.1% of the smart connected device market. By 2016 it is expected to drop to 19.9%. Smartphones will be the preferred product category with share growing from 53.1% in 2011 to 66.7% in 2016. Tablets will also grow significantly with share growing from 7.7% in 2011 to 13.4% in 2016. The shift in demand from the more expensive PC category to more reasonably priced smartphones and tablets will drive the collective market ASP from $534 in 2011 to $378 in 2016.”

In summary, PC’s lose, smartphones and tablets win. And, of course, as these devices get more affordable the entire process will accelerate.

Not totally sure I understand this whole retreat from mobile first! Just because figuring out a monetization and engagement strategy is hard in a competitive app marketplace doesn’t mean that startups shouldn’t try to figure it out.

Lots of good content all of a sudden on both mobile and online marketing. Here are some good ones:

Triggered emails have HUGE open and click throughs: Online Media Daily reports on a study that shows that triggered emails (emails that are sent when a user takes a specific action, such as abandons a shopping cart, have a much higher click through than ordinary marketing emails.”Triggered open rates performed at 75.1% higher”

Yup, people are really opening emails on mobile devices these days; Returnpath “reports that mobile open share has increased 300% since 2010, and shows no sign of slowing, with four out of 10 emails sent being read on a mobile device.” Read more.

“The iPhone and Android smartphones remain the most popular smartphone platforms for messaging. iOS users account for more than half of those opting into MMS and text-messaging campaigns, compared to 34% coming through Android phones. Those levels are up from 23.6%, and 16%, respectively, in April. BlackBerry accounted for 7% of opt-in messaging.” Read more.